NEW YORK — UFC 322 is a historic event — the first ever with two champions jumping weight classes in pursuit of a second belt.
It’s a deep event — the Erin Blanchfield vs. Tracy Cortez and Roman Kopylov vs. Gregory Rodrigues preliminary matchups could headline Fight Night cards.
And it’s a Madison Square Garden event — the venue has reliably produced some of UFC’s most memorable moments since the New York State Athletic Commission authorized MMA in 2016.
That means for down-card athletes competing throughout the first half of the night, it’ll be hard to stand out. But today’s preliminary fighters are often tomorrow’s main carders. Islam Makhachev and Weili Zhang were both fighting on the early preliminary portion of pay-per-views in 2018. Jack Della Maddalena was a prelim fighter at UFC 270 only three years ago.
Odds are, someone fighting earlier in the night at UFC 322 will be approaching the top of a card before long. So, with that in mind, here’s a look at four notable under-the-radar fighters who will make the walk this Saturday at MSG.
When an undefeated UFC middleweight champion says a fighter in his own division is “crazy good,” “better than me,” and “the next champ,” we should probably take notice. And that’s exactly how Khamzat Chimaev described his friend and training partner, Susurkaev, who will face MMA Lab product Eric McConico Saturday night.
Only 24, Susurkaev turned up on the Contender Series in August, winning a contract with a body kick finish, before accepting a booking against knockout artist Eric Nolan at UFC 319 only four days later. After hurting Nolan with leg kicks during a competitive first round, Susurkaev took the fight into his world, dominating on the mat and working his way to a rear naked choke finish.
Susurkaev offered to fight again only a month later at Noche UFC, proclaiming that he’d be a top-five UFC middleweight within a year and champion within two. Lofty goals. And while he didn’t get another fight as quickly as he would’ve liked, he didn’t have to wait long, as Susurkaev will re-enter the octagon only three months following his win over Nolan.
McConico isn’t exactly a name-brand opponent, but another convincing victory could put Susurkaev on a similar trajectory to the one Chimaev took to the top of the sport. The fellow Chechen rattled off his first three UFC wins within two months and fought a ranked opponent — then-No. 11 welterweight Li Jingliang — in his fourth.
Where Susurkaev could diverge from Chimaev is in focusing on one division and staying healthy enough to maintain such a high level of activity. But with youth, confidence and a strong team on his side, there’s plenty of runway for Susurkaev to fulfill his teammates’ bold statements — whether he needs it or not.
Wellmaker arrived on the UFC scene via the Contender Series riding a wave of decisive victories with first- or second-round finishes in five of his first seven professional fights. And he’s carried it right into the world’s top promotion, knocking his first three UFC opponents out within the first round.
These haven’t been just any old knockouts. Wellmaker sent Cameron Saiman flying to the canvas as if he’d been shot from a cannon with a counter left in April and crumpled Kris Moutinho with a devastating right hook behind a knee feint in June, walking off each one-shot finish. That’s the kind of action that earns you placement on an MSG card.
“My career has been fast. It’s been a rocket ship,” Wellmaker said this week in New York. “What a rookie year. Especially for it to have started in April.”
Wellmaker’s demonstrated other facets of his game as well. In each of his last two UFC fights, the 31-year-old has utilized his quickness to avoid damage, absorbing only single-digit strikes in each. Meanwhile, he finished two of his first three professional fights — plus his final as an amateur — via choke submission.
Saturday, Wellmaker gets his most dangerous challenge yet in Australian Cody Haddon, stepping in on a month’s notice after his original opponent, Serhiy Sidey, dislocated a shoulder. Haddon’s a relentless pressure striker who unleashed an onslaught on Dan Argueta his last time out, landing 140 of the 280 significant strikes he threw over three rounds.
But that’s the kind of matchup that opens opportunities for Wellmaker to land one of the devastating counters he used to finish his last two fights while picking up a pair of performance of the night bonuses. The 135-pound division is UFC’s deepest and most talented — highlight moments like those can go a long way to helping a fighter separate from the pack. Doing it on the biggest card of the year wouldn’t hurt, either.
“I think the bantamweight division in general is a banger division. Even outside of the rankings, there’s still fights you could put me in that people would get excited about,” Wellmaker said. “From the mid-tier all the way to the top, there’s many opportunities for super fights.”
It speaks to what a highly touted prospect Kline was upon entering the UFC in July 2024 that she was pulled from a scheduled Contender Series debut and elevated straight into a Fight Night bout with Jasmine Jasudavicius, then a surging flyweight contender. But the challenges Kline accepted in that booking — fighting on short notice, at altitude, without a fight camp, a division up from her preferred strawweight — proved too much to overcome, as she suffered her first professional defeat.
Now, after a pair of decisive stoppage victories at her natural weight class earlier this year, Kline’s back on track and set for her pay-per-view debut this Saturday against veteran strawweight gatekeeper Angela Hill, who has nearly six-and-a-half hours of octagon time — the most in UFC strawweight history. Fighting on the same card as close friend and training partner Erin Blanchfield, Kline hasn’t been shy to share her goal of being the first in Hill’s 33-fight career to beat her via knockout.
That would be quite a statement moment — particularly considering Kline’s specialty is on the ground as a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt — to cap a statement year for the 25-year-old and likely push her up into the back half of UFC’s strawweight rankings. With Zhang Weili leaving the division behind to chase flyweight gold, 115-pounds is wide open for new challengers to make their bids for a title shot. Kline could get there by this time next year if she can beat Hill and rattle off a couple more victories through the first two-thirds of 2026.
Riding an action-packed, five-fight win streak since making his UFC debut in June 2023, you could make a case that the never-dull Mariscal has already earned an opportunity against a top-15 featherweight.
He overwhelmed each of his last two opponents, Ricardo Ramos and Damon Jackson, doubling each of them in strikes on his way to unanimous decision shutouts on all six scorecards. Before that, he poured on late volume to edge out a split-decision win over Morgan Charriere in a fight of the night bonus winner. And that was after breaking Jack Jenkins’ arm with a whizzer kick throw, a technique he credited to his judo background.
Add in three prior victories on strong circuits such as Cage Warriors and LFA, and Mariscal is unbeaten in eight consecutive fights over three years. But the 33-year-old may still be atoning for a 3.5-pound weight miss prior to the Jackson bout — a co-main event on a UFC Apex Fight Night card — as he’s been booked into a rematch with veteran grappler Pat Sabatini on Saturday.
Mariscal beat Sabatini via split decision at Victory FC 60 in April 2018, when both were still striving to stand out on the regional scene. But a fight that old isn’t particularly relevant to who these two are today and Sabatini’s clearly improved, beating Mariscal to the UFC in 2021 and going 7-2 since while allowing only 1.22 significant strikes against per minute, one of the lowest rates in UFC’s featherweight division. Still, with another commanding victory in this matchup, Mariscal may just break down the door into his division’s top 15.
